The Right to the Image | Dignity Images | Refusal, for us & by us
We believe that in the context of a hyper-surveilled era, unmediated technologies like AI, and the ultimate commodification of our lives, and hence, our image, we believe that 3 fundamental pillars are necessary to foster media literacy by creating an educational framework that protects those most marginalized in society.
#1 The Right to the Image: We exist because of Abbounadara’s manifesto pours into us. How is self-determination understood through the making of images? Everybody should have the right to their own image, and most importantly, educational curricula must teach all human beings about the right to protect their own image. Check Denmark’s first attempt to protect people from Deepfakes by changing copyright laws. However, as Abbounadara explains:
Since the birth of photography, individuals have defended their image in the name of ‘property rights’ or the right to privacy.
But these rights don’t protect the world’s most vulnerable citizens whose indignity is exhibited on the screens of the world in the name of the freedom of media.
How can we conceive of a more just right to the image, based on the equality in dignity of all the citizens of the world?
We believe that in order to guarantee the right to the image as an extended right to migrants, refugees, we have to extend all legal, economic, political protections to all non-citizens, as equals.
#2 Dignity Images: Inspired on American Artist‘s term, whose work examines how social media and curation of online identities impact our sense of self and community.
We hold onto dignity images.
Dignity images are images not published online, reclaiming the value of images outside social media platforms as a means of reclaiming dignity, by acknowledging their value outside the commodification of our lives through digital spaces.
#3 Refusal, for us & by us: We all have a story to tell. In addition to the democratization of storytelling tools, technical and critical education can empower marginalized communities in protecting themselves telling their own stories. By being critically aware how stories can constructed, people can choose hyper-visibility and anonymity in their own terms. While storytelling is an ancient practice, critical education is necessary to understand how not only content, but also form, affect our psyche.
Alternative approaches to archiving must be explored, ones that respect the right to privacy and agency within an increasingly surveilled era where tools such as AI support the oppressors more than the oppressed. It is important to refuse to give away our stories, our image, to those that profit from turning us into data points. As corporate entities monopolize the conditions of our digital existence through algorithm-imposed censorship, it is essential to have community-managed and held archives digitally and physically, situated outside of government or corporate oversight. What does it mean to divest from the digital social structures we have been forced to depend on?
AN EDUCATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR MIGRANT & REFUGEES STORYTELLING:
Throughout these months we have developed a curricula that focuses on:
KNOWING
- Media Rights
- Right to privacy
- Benefits of opacity
- Media literacy: The world as fiction. Seeking for the truth
OWNING YOUR STORY
- Technical training:
- TIME: Image, Sound & Narrative.
- Critical storytelling:
- Camera as a witness, not a weapon
- Responsibility and care in relationship-building: Instead of extracting trauma stories through interviews, what if storytelling were a conversation between friends?
- Hyper-visibility & anonymity: How to protect yourself in digital space?Some of the tools provided are how to:
- Blur your face
- How to distort your voice
- Physical & Digital archival infrastructures for ourselves
- Divesting from those who harm us
- The value in building our own world and keeping our data
- Memory & Oral histories
- Methods for offline documentation and storage
- Anonymity
- Security
- Preservation
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